In my pursuit of kob, I’ve become familiar with the different seasons in the various parts of our coastline. The guys in the Eastern Cape are truly lucky, being able to target them throughout the year with a peak during winter months.
If you are chasing kob in the Western Cape, you can expect to start catching them from late August and early September, and then usually only in estuaries. Last year I managed my first on the 20th of September. This year, not by lack of trying, I only managed my first fish on the 6th of October.
I knew the kob was around in fair numbers on this particular evening. Nervous mullet were causing quite a commotion as the sun started dipping and it wasn’t long before the kob were revealing their whereabouts with the distinct ‘booff’ sound they make when inhaling mullet near the surface. At one stage these sounds came closer to where I was standing and I knew they were heading my way. I made sure not to repeat the previous session’s mistake by running after the fish. Earlier this trip I would run up a particular bay where I heard the kob feeding, only to find that they were smashing mullet where I was standing just a few minutes before. The ambush game paid off and soon they were right in front of me. I made a cast in the direction of a particularly close ‘booff’ and this particular kob nailed the fly after about 4 strips, smashing a hole in the surface in the process. Lets hope the action picks up as the season progresses.